


A Small Price to Pay

by Cori Lannam (corilannam)



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-08-30
Updated: 2000-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1810027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corilannam/pseuds/Cori%20Lannam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A poor, injured Jedi Master endures an interrogation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small Price to Pay

"Well, Qui-Gon." 

"Yes." 

"This is quite a situation you've gotten yourself into." Mace Windu looked down at him, face solemn, but lips twitching suspiciously. Mace could control the telltale signs of amusement if he wanted to, Qui-Gon knew. Obviously, the man just wanted to annoy Qui-Gon as much as he could. "The Council has been most interested." 

"I live to entertain you." Qui-Gon shifted uncomfortably, or tried to. He could only move his upper torso, and he couldn't move it very much. A boxy, low-grade healing cast encased his hips, immobilizing him from the waist down to his thighs while it slowly knit the bones back together. The medics had told him that there was nothing more they could do for a broken pelvic bone, but he didn't think he believed them. Surely Jedi doctors could do better than this. And he was certain one of them had snickered during his diagnosis. 

"You must admit that a broken pelvis isn't something we see a lot of in the Temple proper." The twitching around Mace's mouth flared up again briefly. Qui-Gon wished he weren't pinned down flat on his back, so that he could throw the other master bodily out of his room. Then again, the only time Mace ever was in his room was when Qui-Gon had been felled by an injury Mace found amusing. 

"No, I suppose not." 

"On dangerous missions, certainly." 

"I don't doubt it." 

"Vehicle crashes." 

"Yes." His back itched now, but he couldn't move enough to scratch it. He wished Obi-Wan were here. 

"Falls from extreme heights, perhaps." 

"One would think so." 

"Animal attacks, even." 

"I suppose." 

"What puzzles me, Qui-Gon, is that you haven't been on a dangerous mission in, oh, it must be eight or nine years." Since Naboo, of course. But it wasn't his fault Obi-Wan hadn't let him accept any missions involving vehicles, falls or attacking animals since Naboo. "And yet every few months you suffer some bizarre injury." 

"Minor flesh wounds, most of them," Qui-Gon protested. Internally, he winced. Mace had been looking for a way to blame Anakin for those injuries-and the concurrent damage to Temple property-ever since the boy had come to the Temple. Qui-Gon had had little success in convincing Mace that the latter event was not directly related to the former. Anakin was a growing boy, and he didn't yet know his own strength. 

"In fact, you haven't left the Temple in three days. Yet your bondmate brought you into the infirmary early this morning with this... interesting injury." 

"I applaud your thorough detective work, Councillor." 

"It's become quite the intriguing conundrum in the Council Chamber, I must say. Tell me again how it happened, would you?" 

"I fell." He tried again to adjust his position on the bed, and again failed to do anything but increase the itch on his back. 

"Did you, now? Over the rug, was it?" 

"Yes. I wish I had a better story with which to entertain you, Mace, but there it is: I tripped." 

"Strange how clumsy you've become over the, oh...." 

"Past eight or nine years?" Qui-Gon raised his eyebrows, which felt like the only part of his body still functioning. 

"Why, yes." Mace gave the small, condescending smile he had developed ever since reaching the head of the Council. Qui-Gon had long since learned to hate it. "I worry about you, Qui-Gon. We all do." 

He grunted and tried one more time to rub his itchy back against the bedclothes. "That's hardly necessary." 

Mace started to answer, but stopped and turned his head at the sound of the outer door opening. Qui-Gon's mood brightened instantly as he recognized the sense of the newcomer. His Obi-Wan. His beloved wedded bondmate. Obi-Wan would not taunt him-he had gotten that out of his system as they waited in the infirmary that morning-and if he were feeling particularly indulgent, Obi-Wan might even scratch his back for him. 

Obi-Wan strode through the door, a smile of greeting on his face, then stopped cold when he spotted Mace. The smile changed into a look of caution, and he bowed with perfect correctness. "Master Windu." 

"Knight Kenobi, a pleasure as always." Mace nodded with equal correctness. His relationship with Obi-Wan had once been warmer, until Obi-Wan took on a certain rambunctious padawan against Mace's advice. "I was just expressing the sympathies of the Council to your bondmate on his... accident." 

The pause between words was expressive, but Obi-Wan did not even blink. "It was a sad incident. We may have to move the rug so that it no longer impedes Master Qui-Gon's passage." 

"Ah yes. Wise." Mace hid his disgruntlement well, but Qui-Gon could detect his annoyance at having Qui-Gon's story backed up. Qui-Gon basked in the annoyance like a warm sunbeam. Now, if only Obi-Wan would throw Mace out of their quarters by any means necessary short of drawing his lightsaber. Then he could get his back scratched and have a nap. 

Obi-Wan did not throw Mace out, but he did come over and kiss Qui-Gon softly, which was almost as good. "I'm glad to see you're feeling well enough to have visitors," he said as he stroked Qui-Gon's hair back from his forehead. 

"That's debatable," Qui-Gon replied with a dark look in Mace's direction. "But I'm better now that you're here." He would drive the infuriating man away by an overdose of sweet cuddly mushiness, if nothing else worked. Out of the corner of his eye, he could already see Mace's features pinching with sour irritation. 

Obi-Wan kissed him again, then stood up and cleared his throat significantly. Mace met Obi-Wan's pointed glance with raised eyebrows, then sighed and shook his head, visibly conceding the field. Qui-Gon began to sigh with relief, but his exhalation cut short at the sound of the outer doors opening again. He exchanged a glance with Obi-Wan, then they both stiffened as they recognized the agitated sense of the newcomer. 

Mace did, as well. He flashed Qui-Gon one of his rare and feral smiles, then stepped back against the wall just as Anakin Skywalker burst into the room, a large bunch of Qui-Gon's favorite flowers in his hands. 

Qui-Gon tried to signal Anakin with his eyes, and he could feel Obi-Wan sending increasingly dire mental warnings to his padawan through their training link. Ani remained oblivious to it all, as he so often did, hurrying right past Mace Windu without so much as a glance. Someday, Qui-Gon thought with growing dismay, someday they would manage to instill a sense of self-preservation into the boy. But as Anakin threw himself to his knees at Qui-Gon's bedside, he could tell it wouldn't be today. 

"Master Qui-Gon," Anakin said, looking up at him with soulful blue eyes. His expression was so forlorn that Qui-Gon had to physically resist the urge to pat him on the head in reassurance. He heard a rustle, and then flowers filled his hands. They were off-season; Anakin must have spent the afternoon Force-growing them in the garden. "I'm so, so sorry." 

"Don't apologize, Ani." Qui-Gon's gaze flicked toward Mace, who watched with a smug expression spreading over his face. "Really, don't." 

"But I am sorry. I really didn't mean to... you know... like that." Anakin swallowed hard and looked miserable. Qui-Gon finally gave in to the urge to cup the boy's face in a tender caress. 

"It's all right, Ani." 

Anakin looked only partially reassured. He took Qui-Gon's hand in both of his and kissed it fervently. "I'm so incredibly, unbelievably sorry." He leaned up and pressed another kiss to the corner of Qui-Gon's cheek. "And I want to assure you that last night was just a bad mistake, and isn't necessarily any indication of... um, future performance." 

"Ani-" Obi-Wan had his hand on Anakin's shoulder, his gaze fixed across the room. Qui-Gon looked as well, then winced at the expression of dawning amazement on Mace's features. 

Anakin failed to notice any of it. He grabbed Obi-Wan's hand and kissed it, too, then held on tightly to them both. "I'll make it up to both of you, I promise, if you'll just give me another chance." 

"Ani!" Obi-Wan's voice was strangled, and Anakin finally looked up at his teacher, confused. He followed Obi-Wan's gaze, then froze when he spotted Mace. The Councillor was staring at him with wide eyes, astonished and on the verge of hysterical laughter. Anakin's face went deathly pale. "Ani, we were just chatting with Master Windu about the... accident." 

"Master Windu!" The words came out as a breathless squeak. Qui-Gon squeezed the hand he still held in what he knew was a futile attempt at reassurance. Anakin had spent most of the last several years trying to stay out of Mace's way, for the sake of everyone's safety. 

"Padawan Skywalker." Mace stepped forward. He had regained control of his expression, but his eyes still shone with the look of a man vastly entertained by someone else's embarrassment. Qui-Gon knew he was chortling inside. "Perhaps you could describe to me what happened." 

Anakin looked from Obi-Wan to Qui-Gon, but they could only look back at him helplessly. The turmoil in his mind prevented them from giving him any mental cues. Finally, the boy looked back to Mace. "Speeder bike accident?" he said cautiously, then bit his lip when Qui-Gon winced. "Tree... big animal...?" He trailed off, then ducked his head with a sigh of resignation. 

Mace stood quietly for a moment, looking from Anakin to Obi-Wan to Qui-Gon and back again. The twitching around his mouth had returned, and it intensified until a loud snort of laughter burst out. "Qui-Gon, you dog," he said, still laughing. "*Both* of them?" 

"Mace," Qui-Gon said weakly. He opened his mouth again, but couldn't make anything come out. Really, Mace was reacting better than he'd thought he would. 

"Qui-Gon," Mace replied and chortled some more. "Oh, Qui-Gon, you do know how to pick them." He swiped his sleeve across his eyes; when he lowered his arm, he was again the granite-faced Jedi Master of legend. "If you will excuse me, I have a Council meeting I don't wish to miss." With a dignified swirl of robes, he was gone before any of them could summon a response. 

"Well," Obi-Wan said after a long silence. "That could have gone better." 

Anakin groaned and slumped forward, burying his face in the bedclothes by Qui-Gon's side. 

"It could have gone worse," Qui-Gon said and stroked Anakin's hair soothingly. 

"How?" Anakin groaned again, head still pressed against Qui-Gon's side just above the cast. "How could that possibly have been worse?" 

"He could have asked to join in," Obi-Wan suggested, dead-pan. 

Anakin lifted his head and grinned up at his master with something that might have been a giggle if Anakin weren't a very serious and dignified Jedi student. Qui-Gon smiled, too, with the enjoyment that only came with having the two he loved most close beside him. Cast or no cast. 

Yes, it could have been worse. He looked up at his young, amazingly virile bondmate, then down at that bondmate's even younger, and very enthusiastic, padawan. And now the Council knew all about it. A broken pelvis seemed a small price to pay. 

"Qui-Gon?" Anakin was looking up at him through lowered lashes, a gleam in his eyes Qui-Gon was learning to recognize-and anticipate. His hand tightened around Anakin's fingers. "I meant what I said before. About making it up to you. When you're better, of course." 

That sultry voice might have provoked a response from what parts of his body he could still feel, but another, less pleasant sensation distracted him. That damnable, nearly violent itch, right in the middle of his back. He wiggled his shoulders as much as he could, then turned his sweetest smile on both of his companions. "Would you like to start right now?"


End file.
